


The first of 9

by limey_limey



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Character Death, Child Abuse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:35:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25738162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/limey_limey/pseuds/limey_limey
Summary: How do you figure out you have 9 lives without losing the first one?
Relationships: Adora & Catra (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 145
Collections: Sad stuff





	The first of 9

**Author's Note:**

> Noelle's post about how many times Catra actually died in the series made me wonder how she would know she'd survive the fall at Princess Prom - so I stole a death.

Lightening danced around the small body, ebbing and flowing in scarlet tendrils over her skin. To an outsider it looked like a beautiful interplay of light and shadow. To the child at the centre it felt like fire racing under her skin, setting every nerve and cell ablaze. Completely immobilised, body desperate to writhe, to twist with the agony, she could not even whimper. At least she was not in the centre of the crowded training room, filled with all of the squads in her year, including her own. At least she wasn’t in front of Adora’s impotent rage and perpetual capitulation. Until she was. 

Catra felt the paralysis end as she dropped to the floor. Thankfully her feline ability to land on her feet meant that she stumbled rather than tripping and humiliating herself further in from of the formidable figure in red that towered over her. 

“Do you have anything to say for yourself, you snivelling little beast?” Shadow Weaver spat out in her molasses voice, the venom pouring in her ear and making Catra twitch.

She shook her head mutely, hoping that this would be over soon and that she would be able to join the other cadets in training. Even if her muscles throbbed and her body ached from the crushing force of the red lightening, she didn’t want to always be the one that walked in late and was singled out. Didn’t want the eyes of the other kids watching her with pity or mirth. Everybody already knew that she was bad, that she would come to nothing - Shadow Weaver had made sure of that - she didn’t need to keep reminding them. She was already a pariah, even in her own team they all thought she was nothing. All except Adora, but even she knew Catra was a screw up, she said as much whenever she tried to get her away from punishment. 

“Get out of my sight!” The child saluted sloppily, and ran towards the large double doors at the end of the hallway.

Catra took a breath and casually opened the door and walked in, as much as she wanted to burst through the doors and hide behind the nearest adult, she knew that none of them would shield her. She would simply get in more trouble for the noise, or her cowardice or her tardiness. The cycle would start again. Better to use her natural stealth to slink in, locate Rogelio in the crowd (his already imposing nine year old frame towering over most of the other cadets) and pretend that she had been there all along.

It worked. That or the instructors took pity on her today and ignored her late arrival. Either way, she was just happy that nobody was looking at her. She practiced hr moves, paired up with first Kyle and then Lonnie. Her body still felt sluggish and she was ashamed when Kyle was able to land a blow on her face, leaving her more dazed than she already was. When Lonnie tripped her onto her ass she was livid, all her rage and helplessness at Shadow Weaver distilling in a need to punch and shred somebody and Lonnie was apparently going to be that somebody. The cacophony of sounds in the room shrank to a buzz at the back of her head, the acrid smell of the sweating bodies of dozens of pre-teens in her nostrils made her gag. Then she was lunching at Lonnie whose face transformed from smug amusement into abject terror in an instant. Catra may be small and slight, but she had a mouth full or knives and hands full or razor blades - every one aimed at the dark skinned girl. But she never got to her. 

She hadn’t seen the shadow sorceress enter the room.

++++

Nobody batted an eye when the small, furred body, flew through the air. No-one flinched when they heard it slam into the metal wall of the training room with a bone shattering boom. Not one eye turned to even look in the direction of the young cat-girl who slid to lay in a heap on the floor, silent and still. They all knew better. Each squad of young cadets who was training in the large gymnasium, even the girls own, feared the retaliation they would suffer if they were to help or even voice their concern for their fellow trainee. Even the various instructors in the room dared not move towards the sluggishly bleeding figure until the imposing figure of Shadow Weaver drifted out of the room, ominously surrounded by her name sakes.

Feverish activity broke out the moment that the door closed behind her, though. Two of the instructors rushed to the side of the broken child while a third rushed out of the door to the infirmary. Large hands carefully explored the child’s body, noting the shallow breathing and litany of broken bones. Agonisingly long moments later a medic team burst through the doors with a gurney, gingerly lifting the body and placing it on the cold, steel surface before whisking back out of the door.

Through it all Adora had stared horrified at the scene but unable to move or even make a sound. Her whole body was shaking in fear but she hadn’t been able to do anything to help her best friend and now she was gone. The blond had no idea how hurt she was but it had seemed bad. When a scaled hand landed on her shoulder to give a reassuring squeeze she shrugged it off impatiently.

Lessons were over for the day, a pall having fallen on all of the assembled children. Even the instructors seemed shaken as they directed the squads back to their various barracks and instructed them to stay there for the rest of the afternoon. 

The four members of Catra’s squad sat quietly in the room. There wasn’t much to say. 

Adora laid down on her bed and stared at the crude drawings of them beside her head. She didn’t cry, because she was a soldier, but her heart beat loudly in her ears as she waited for her best friend to be brought back. Catra always came back.

++++

By the time the girl reached the infirmary it was too late. Her heart had stopped and her body had begun to cool. The huge trauma that her small body had suffered too severe to survive. Bones had shattered like glass on impact with the wall. The child’s already compromised body simply had not had the reserves to protect itself. The medical staff knew this young cadet better than any other, had patched her up a hundred times from wounds so sever it was a wonder that she had survived this long. Today she had not been so lucky.

They tucked her into a canvass sack and called for a disposal team. No pomp and ceremony for this one. No grave, there was nobody to grieve for her and Shadow Weaver had always been very explicit about that. This cadet was to be disposed of like waste should she not survive. Though it shamed the various doctors and staff of the infirmary, their fear of Hordak’s second in command was almost absolute.

The incinerator awaited.

++++

Medical waste was disposed of only once a week. The kitten in the sack sat on the garbage pile, among festering bandages and rotten things for three days, on the fourth she would be thrown unceremoniously into the fire and turned to ash.

Except she wasn’t.

On the third day on the pile the bag began to move. Anyone watching might have been forgiven for thinking that the rats that ran through this area had got into the sack and were squirming ever the body, consuming the decaying flesh. They would have been wrong. Small, razor sharp claws punctured the canvass of the bag and drew down, slicing it open in four long gashes. With panicked gasps the kitten sat up and took huge gulps of the fetid air, gagging and vomiting all over her lap.

And she remembered.

She remembered the corridor and Shadow Weaver’s anger.

She remembered Kyle’s fist and Lonnie’s mockery.

She remembered flying through the air. The wall. The agony.

She remembered dying. 

She knew she had died, somewhere deep in her still aching bones. It had been more than unconsciousness - with every fibre of her being she knew that she had been gone.

But she was back now.

Catra flicked her ears and gazed down as she slid her claws in and out, tail agitatedly waving behind her. Thats when she knew, she didn’t just look like a cat. 

Eight lives left.

Stumbling over the trash, she laughed mirthlessly. She would have to hide this from the adults and the other cadets. She didn’t want to be seen as more expendable than she already was. She would have to think of a lie to explain how she was still here - she was already a good liar, she’d think of something.

++++

When Adora woke up that morning, eyes still red from nights of crying for her best friend, she found her curled up at the foot of her bed.

Adora’s sadness turned into confusion. Nobody had told the cadets anything about what had happened to Catra, no matter how much she asked. It was as if she had never existed but here she was. She looked a little dirty and smelled awful, but here.

The blond leaned down and gingerly touched her friends ears, relaxing when she heard a gentle purr. She’d ask what happened tomorrow.

Catra would never give an answer.

Years later she’d drop from a cliff dressed in a suit, releasing Adora’s hand and plummeting to an icy death. Seven more.


End file.
